Citrus Black went down yellow and so pale that it was only a guess where the writing landed. However, within a few seconds, the color darkened to a yellow green with lots of shading.

Lavender Black showed a less dramatic change though it did shift its shade of purple.

On a Staples lined pad, both inks dried incredibly fast even from a medium nib with good flow. On Rhodia paper, the ink dried a little more slowly. It’s coated versus uncoated paper though the Staples pad is very smooth. Lefties might love these inks on the right paper.

Wait. Did I just say “the right paper”? Yep, that’s the usual caveat, but it’s also a charming aspect of using fountain pens.

Platinum Classic inks are iron gall based so pen hygiene is important. In the past, iron gall inks reputedly damaged nibs and feeds though my experience with them has been without incident.

To push the limit with this new ink, I set aside the inked pens for over a month. Just now, I tried them on the back of a cheap envelope and they performed flawlessly. No hard starts, no skipping, good flow, and no pen damage. Credit Platinum’s Slip and Seal mechanism to some extent, but the lack of pen damage can only be attributed to the performance of the ink. It didn’t eat my pens. Yea!

Written words stayed in place under running water with less than a 10% loss of ink. It might be less than 5%, but it is too little to matter for most uses.

Plaisirs with Platinum Classic Lavender Black and Citrus Black are perfect together. Other pens might not be as well-suited, but these pens and inks were meant for each other.